• Holyginz@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    What I’ve seen so many people not understand with the situation we are in right now, is that we can’t fix our current situation in one election. Everything is far to tucked up for that, so the best that can be done is vote for the least fucked up option and work to improve things. People refusing to participate or vote for the candidate who is unfortunately our best option currently (biden) are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party. The perfect candidate/option does not exist and never will (obviously not saying everything biden has done has been good).

    • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      People do understand that concept, but it’s literally what Democrats have been doing for the past 40 years and it has put us right here where we are right now. The “lesser of two evils” thing just has no propellant left, no one is buying that line anymore. Neoliberalism needs to go before Democrats can start winning again.

      You need to understand that people have been saying “just put the neolibs in power again and we’ll work to improve things” every election cycle, and now we are closer to fascism than we’ve literally ever been. You at least understand why people see that strategy as a failure, right? Like, you understand why no one believes it anymore?

      • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        A vote for neoliberals is a vote to not have fascism for four more years. America’s voting system doesn’t allow the never-have-fascism votes to be pooled with the delay-fascism votes, so unless there’s a decent chance for a mass swing of voters from delay-fascism to never-have-fascism, trying to encourage a small-scale swing only makes immediate fascism more likely by weakening the only thing with a chance to delay it.

        If the plan is to try and encourage the Democrats to have primaries that actually have the power to move the party left, now is not the time to withhold a vote in protest as there’s a good chance that even if it did convince them, there’d never be another election that wasn’t rigged so they’d lose it no matter how popular they were.

        • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          A vote for neoliberals is a vote to not have fascism for four more years.

          That’s an extremely hard case to make at this point though when the “not” fascist guy is funding a genocide and refusing to entertain the measures we’d need to take to actually take the fight to the fascists (ex. Championing an effort to pack the supreme court). Neoliberals are not truly acting like democracy is on the line, they say it a lot but it’s not what their actions communicate, which makes it difficult to believe they’d ever stop obstructing progress.

          Neoliberals don’t stop or stall fascists by getting into power – they just soft sell it and give the general public time to acclimate to the slipping of the Overton window. They do this in service of corporate interests rather than theocracy the way the far-right does but it ends us up in the same place.

          If the plan is to try and encourage the Democrats to have primaries that actually have the power to move the party left, now is not the time to withhold a vote in protest as there’s a good chance that even if it did convince them, there’d never be another election that wasn’t rigged so they’d lose it no matter how popular they were.

          Now is the time that the Democratic establishment chooses to try to strong arm the left into voting for them, they do this every election; claim the sky is falling and that we must vote for them or else. So I guess my view is, if they have assessed that they can risk playing a game of chicken, so can voters.

          I understand Project 2025 and its seriousness, but that problem is going to be there every election from here until such a time that the GOP dissolves. I’m skeptical that 4 years will allow them to achieve everything they want to without sweeping the house and senate too. The president cannot legally be crowned king, and if they try to do that perhaps that is what it will take to actually radicalize the self-sedated upper middle-class liberals and political fence-sitters.

          I’m sick of defensive leadership, and any offensive needs to start with attacking the Democratic structure that’s making the party so ineffectual and complicit. More time is not enough in my opinion, people were talking about GOP plans to capture the supreme court as far back as Bush Jr. and giving Democrats wins achieved nothing. They need to be forced to take it seriously and I just don’t see that happening without some pain (for them and, unfortunately, us).

    • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Forget a perfect candidate. Just go back and watch the 2012 debate and both Obama and Mitt Romney were infinitely better than Joe Biden or Trump.

      • NormalPerson@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        But they never told me which of them was the better golfer.

        God it feels stupid to write that and it being an actual argument during a presidential debate.

    • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I mean all the concerned people could take to the streets right now.

      The DNC wants you to believe that all you can do is cast your vote for something every other year and just take the options presented. In that sense they are worse than the Reps who encourage their base to be active for more than just the ballots and it is working.

      Especially now the Dems give me huge 1984 vibes in how the individual should handle politics relative to the party.

    • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      so the best that can be done is vote for the least fucked up option and work to improve things.

      Democrats were good at the first part, but not the second. I remember lots of Dems saying “Vote for Biden, and then we’ll hold his feet to the fire!” Well, there was no “holding his feet to the fire”, because that’s seen as enabling Trump.

      The perfect candidate/option does not exist and never will

      Yes, but there are candidates who are better, such as Jill Stein and Cornel West. You can’t vote for a perfect candidate, but you can vote for the best candidate.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You might as well vote for Barney the dinosaur for all the good it will do.

        A vote for a candidate who cannot win is wasted.

        • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          A vote for a candidate who cannot win is wasted.

          Then it sounds like moderates need to be convinced a vote for a pro-corporate, genocide supporting, establishment geriatric is a waste of a vote.

          • Freefall@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            wait, that is both of them! So, the felon adulterer serial liar narcissist one or the one that is older by two years and doesn’t know where he is or what he is saying sometimes?

            • psycho_driver@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Right? Everything you can say negative about Biden can be said about Trump and Trump will be the worse offender of the two. Biden does have positive qualities, which I honestly cannot think can be said about Trump. He is a sushi roll consisting entirely of turd.

              • Tryptaminev@lemm.ee
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                6 months ago

                And you are happily imprisoning yourself into believing that the system is right to only offer you these two as candidates. If everyone that was progressive and unhappy with Biden would vote for Stein, then she could win. It is the mere talk about her having no chance of winning and the vote being wasted that keeps people in line to take the system as is.

                I see the same arguments made against voting for smaller parties in my country where there is a minimum % they need to achieve before getting parliament seats. It is a system designed to preserve the current political elites with their network to the economic and cultural elites against ideas and movements taking a foothold.

                Everyone sees what Biden is and what he stands for. If everyone who disagrees with that would take to the streets and demand the DNC to hold a real primary, or better yet demand fundamental changes to the political system, you would be surprised what is possible.

                • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  Stein isn’t in the ballot in enough states to win the electoral college. She literally cannot win.

              • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                The difference being people voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries over much better people. I’m not going to reward that behavior again.

      • Holyginz@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        You need to also vote for someone who actually has a chance to win. Voting for a better candidate who realistically can’t win in elections like this were someone like Trump could win is basically handing Trump the win. His base doesn’t think for themselves, and would vote for him if he killed their family in front of them. I wish to God we had Bernie instead of Biden, but Bernie wouldn’t have won.

        • zarkanian@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          I live in a blue state, so using that logic, I shouldn’t vote at all. Voting for Trump or Biden is a waste of time, because the state will go blue regardless.

          His base doesn’t think for themselves, and would vote for him if he killed their family in front of them.

          If Biden killed your family in front of you, would you still vote for him?

          I wish to God we had Bernie instead of Biden, but Bernie wouldn’t have won.

          What convinced you of this?

    • go_go_gadget@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party.

      Hooooooly fuck this gets 27 upvotes? There it is folks. Leftists are doing more damage by refusing to vote than the people who stormed the capitol. This hot take brought to you by lemmy.

      • nexguy@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        1000 people stormed the capitol. Allowing trump to win is far far far worse. Federal judge appointments alone are worth far more.

        • retrospectology@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Yes, Hillary and the DNC allowed Trump to win by ignoring their base and chasing imaginary “swing” voters. And now they’re doing it again.

    • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      Not having enough time and voting for the least fucked candidate is old and tired. How long do we vote for the Turd over the Douche instead of voting for someone that we actually believe in?

      Also, I can’t justify genocide.

      • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        If Project 2025 is successful, we won’t ever have another democratic election. Our election is going to work like Russia’s does after that point, and we will have a dictator of some kind that pretends to hold elections.

        So, unfortunately, this is not the way.

          • TopRamenBinLaden@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            You are very right, and I feel your pain. I’m not judging you for feeling that way, at all.

            I just don’t think that abstaining from voting is going to work in favor of fixing this issue. If anything we need to keep voting to keep the country as left as it can be for now, until we can shift the two parties we are forced to pick from farther to the left.

    • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      People refusing to participate or vote for the candidate who is unfortunately our best option currently (biden) are doing more damage than the people voting for the fascist party.

      Incredible take. “Say what you will about fascists, at least they support the two party system.”